


Rose Blood

by a_pathetic0524



Series: Red Strings [5]
Category: ONE OK ROCK
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hanahaki Disease, Illness, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of Background Characters, No Beta No Double Check, Pre-Relationship, Red Rose, Requited Unrequited Love, Written in one sitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-17 23:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14841029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_pathetic0524/pseuds/a_pathetic0524
Summary: Rose; an overused symbol of love. One of the new tattoo he got while in Los Angeles, now rested on the inside of his upper arm, right beside the palm tattoo with ‘love’ written on it. Stays hidden.Red Rose; a replacement of ‘I love you’. The flowers growing inside his lungs. A thirteen years of pain.A pain from Yamashita Toru.His rose.





	Rose Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Is crazy with Detroit: Become Human, and as I reading the fics of my brand new fictional character ships, I stumbled into this heart wrenching fic : [For Loyalty by drunkandpylades](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805504), that also included finding a new troupe "Hanahaki Disease". Googling about it, saw a lot used rose, remember Taka has rose tattoo. So yeah. Here you go, Hanahaki Disease fic. Hopefully I can make you enjoy it. Thanks for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer © One OK Rock
> 
> p.s : I forgot how old was Taka and the older girl when they date back in Taka teenage years.

_Rose_ ; an overused symbol of love. One of the new tattoo he got while in Los Angeles, now rested on the inside of his upper arm, right beside the palm tattoo with ‘love’ written on it. Stays hidden.

 _Red Rose_ ; a replacement of ‘I love you’. The flowers growing inside his lungs. A thirteen years of pain.

A pain from Yamashita Toru.

_His rose._

 

—

 

“Takahiro!”

“M-Mori-chan?”

Screams and gasps, worries and fears are drowning within the echo of his coughing. Taka cups his mouth with his right palm, left hands clutching on—God knows who the fuck holding his body right now—'s clothes as he kneeling on the floor. Pains throbbing his chest in every times he coughs alongside a same sentence playing over and over in his head: _he never fucking asked for this_.

Right, he never fucking asked for the pain, then, why? 

_Why roses growing in his lungs?_

Tears welling on his eyes, Taka frowns as his blurry sights catches red petals floating on his blood. His lips trembling like his shoulders and arms. His breath falters. One, two, one, two and he coughs out another blood, another petals, suffocating by love.

“Are you okay?”

 _It's him_.

A familiar smoky baritone trembling his eardrums is only _his_. The warm, soft, and gentle embrace on his bare shoulders is _his_. The clothes he's clutching on is _his_. The roses growing inside his lungs are _his_.

 _But him_.

Taka tightens his jaw, “Which part of me ...?”, crushing the petals in his grasp as he talks. He finds the usual handsome face haunting his dream every night, an ever so slightly smile paints his face like the blood on his lips, “Which part of me is looking okay, Toru-san?”

_When your thorns piercing his lungs; when your withered petals clogging his trachea, tell him, which part of him, looking okay? For you are the roses growing in his chest._

 

—

 

“Thankfully, the dome tour is done already.” A long sigh follows Ryota's sentence as he falls into a sofa in the corner of his hospital's bedroom.

“I can still do it, you know?” Taka brings an eyebrow up, “Do your ass think I'd cancel our dome tour just because of this fucking shit? It's nothing.” 

Before the fucking shit, he was troubled with constipation and fatigue, and blah, and he could continue singing just all right. Or even when some fans bugged him with a question about his relationship with Rola, the female friend he was rumoured with just because he hugged her in an Instagram video he posted back in 2017's New Year, or when shitty _Shuukan Bunshun_ took his private pictures when he was exiting a spa place with Asada Mai, that figure skater friend he knew recently, he could still continue singing and performing just all right without snapping like he did before. _And..._

And just because of this shitty disease...why should he stopped or cancelled their show? In fact, he could always hold it whenever he sang ‘ _Wherever You Are_ ’—or ‘ _Heartache_ ’. He did it well, despite his voice cracking when he holds the petals from coming out, running towards the backstage every time he could just like he did with his stomachache. He did it just fine.

For thirteen years he's enduring, the single rose becomes a bucket. He did just fine— _until yesterday_. 

Now, everyone knows that he's sick.

“You may not, but I would.”

_Even him._

A plate full of something looking dangerous landed on his laps. “What is this, Toru-san?” Taka brings his head to look at the man standing beside his bed.

The One OK Rock's guitarist cleared his throat before opening his mouth, “Apples,” his face as stiff and looking drowsy as usual, “in rabbit shapes.” 

Taka frowns. He stares at the x-thing, to the one who made it, and back to the x-thing. Grabbing the small fork, he pokes the mushy brownish meat of the x-thing that should be apples. “Which part of _this_ looks like rabbit apples?” Is it what Toru was making as he talked with Ryota who phoned Tomoya who asked them what food they—he wanted since they knew how shitty hospital's food is? That was more than thirty minutes ago. “I can't even see the rabbit shapes, if there's any of course,“ he shrugs, teasing the man, “it looks like you're making a poisoned apple porridge or something, looks even more worse since you put the skins too,” he glances at the guitarist, smirking, “how hard did you squeezed the poor apples as you chopping it, Toru-san?”

“I—” Toru groans. “No one forces you to eat it.”

“There, there,” Taka stabs a piece, the most brownish and mushy one, “don't sulk, I'll eat it.” The part with the skin that, maybe, should be the rabbit's head and ears dangling as he lifts it, and in the end falls back on to the plate. Can't be helped, he laughs. Hard and loud. And it fishes the bassist to come closer and taking a look at what their leader had made, and after that he's no longer laughing alone.

“You two—!” Toru sighs, smacking the back of his childhood friend's head and eyeing him after as he knits his brows together. “You don't need to eat it,” he says after Ryota stopped whining.

Taka chuckles, squinting his eyes. “I'll eat it,” he draws a smirk on his face, “how come I'm not eating what _Leader-sama_ has made. Your fangirls will hate me.”

“What's with that?” Toru raises a brow.

“Nothing,” he nods his shoulders.

Ryota leans forward, staring at the plate of apples on his laps, “Mori-chan, you'll get poisoned if you eat that, y'know?” he jokes.

“It's okay.”

“Ryota's right,” Toru clicked his tongue, “better wait for Tomoya, I don't want to kill you.”

“I said, it's okay, Toru-san.”

Their eyes meet, Toru is smiling ever so slightly, “Don't need to pity me, and no fangirl will—”

“You'll still kill me after all, Toru-san.”

_Because you're the roses growing in his lungs._

 

—

 

A man shouldn't bed with another man. A man couldn't fall in love with another man. It's a doctrine he had heard since before he knew how do love tastes like. Of course, he never had any trouble, the girls he liked would always returned his feelings. Or at least, he would always returned the girls feelings. Be it the older girl he loved when he was 14 and she was 17, be it the girl he slept with and the photo spread, caused a scandal, and he left News, and made him forgetting how to raise his head while he sings. One after another, girls took the label as his girlfriend one after another. It was so easy for him.

Until Toru appeared in front of his eyes.

“ _Hanahaki Disease,_ ” the doctor told him the name of his illness. 

He was 23 years old. One OK Rock had gained a momentum to come back. ‘ _Niche Syndrome_ ’ had already be in the market and _‘Zankyou Reference’_ had waited to be released. _‘Wherever You Are’_ had been played here and there. And _Budokan,_ they had tasted it.

“What?” Than a shock or confusion, he felt a disbelief. Of the feeling he brushed of since long. As he noticed it, the pain in his chest grew. Every moment he saw him, a throb follows. Every time he introduced a girl—a woman as they grew older—as his girlfriend, something stabs him.

“A rose.” 

 _Thorns from the flower made by love_.

“A rose...?”

Remembering their song, ‘ _ROSE BLOOD_ ’, he can laugh harder than he laughed at Tomoya's or Ryota's quirks. Or Toru's losing another rock-scissor-paper to pay their expensive lunch or dinner. Or the rabbit-shaped apples Toru made.

‘ _Even your thorn stabs to my skin_

_Won't let you leave_

_It is alright to me, the pain well become_

_Luscious, agonizing, nectar to me_ ’

 

Yet, he hates pain.

The doctor propped his hands on the table, face looked concerning, and with both eyes staring right into his consciousness, he knew the disease wasn't a child scare. The kids, back in the days, forcing another kid they liked to like them back and saying that if they rejected them, they'll die and haunt them for the rest of their life. Funny. It's still funny.

“For simple,” The doctor started, behind him was his roentgen, glued to a table on the wall and the light helped them to see what was in his lungs, “As you can see, there's a flower inside your lungs, a rose had blooming, but,” she took a laser and pointed the red dot towards two white dots, “there are another two waiting to bloom, and then there'll be another. And another.” She glanced at him, taking a deep breathe and motioned her laser following a white line, “The roots had taken a reside in your respiratory system,” she faced him, face full of concern, “that's the cause of your recent coughing fits.”

 _Hanahaki Disease_ a.k.a what everyone knows as unrequited love disease. A single flower, different from each person and another, he is the one that got the most cliché ever. On the first stage, upon realizing your feeling, knowing it's a one-sided love, the bud blooms into a single flower, cough fits happening like the doctor explained. As the plant growing, as the unrequited love lingers too long, withered petals clogging the trachea, blocking the ability to breathe and the victim will start vomiting petals. And as it worsen, damaged lungs makes the victim coughs blood.

Death is waiting.

Taka bit the inside of his cheek, staring wordlessly at the woman. His hands rested on his laps, but his fingers drumming as the sign of restlessness he felt. _He didn't asked for this_ , the sentence echoed in his head over and over.

“You know what you should do,” the doctor continued, “or...“ she wetted her lips, “a surgery will help you,” she said careful. “Before another rose appears and blooming, before the roots pierced your lungs and tore it, and make a way towards your heart, and when it happens...” _or if he got rejected and drowning in heartbroken_.

“I'll think of if.”

 

—

 

Since when it resides in his lungs, he probably will never know. But he realizes, the thumps—the slow thumps, and the warm gathered inside his chest, as Toru embraced him the first time he sang with his head raised. The same slow thumps he felt when Toru sent him a long message—with that kind of voice you had, he wrote, believing he could do it, raising his head, changing the view from his legs and stage floor to the audience's stares he hated.

The pierce.

He realized it too. When Toru introduced his girlfriend after they released their first indie. He was suffocated by the feeling unknown to him at that moment. The cough he had, the dinner he vomited, soon turned into a blood. Any doctors he met urged him for a surgery if he thought, he can't do it, and knowing that rejection is harmful.

Addiction is the reason he refuses surgery, perhaps.

‘ _I will be taking every bit of you_

_With my heart, my soul, my stronger love_

_I surely defeat the bumbling bee_ ’

But ‘ _ROSE BLOOD_ ’ sounds funnier, and he's no longer vomited only blood, but also withered rose petals.

Every touches Toru gives him, every time he sees Toru's smile, and listening to his smoky baritone, every time he's staring at the midnight colored irises Toru has within his drowsy frame, every times he hears Toru laughing, every times Toru strumming his guitar, how the agile fingers moves swiftly on the fretboard, his heart thumps too wild, nourishing the roses in his lungs.

And every time Toru brings his girlfriend, new girlfriend, the women he closed with, every time he tries to fall in love with another person, to kill the roses inside his lungs, getting close to the women he knows, Ayaka from Perfume, Rola, Asada, and so on, and so on, and so on, and sleeping with God knows which women he just met during the tours, and lying about him not knowing love, never have someone he loves, and singing ‘ _Wherever You Are_ ’, another petals wither, clogging his trachea.

But the roses.

_But his love for Yamashita Toru._

 

—

 

“Mori-chan!”

Taka shuts his eyes tight as he's coughing harder. Pain spread from his chest to his neck. Ache throbs is head.

“Call the doctor!”

Blood dripping from the gap of his fingers cupping his mouth, and rose petals spilling as he vomits too much. The same sentence played. He never asked for this. He never asked for this. This love. This pain.

_From all the women he had around him, why do he fall for a man?_

“Takahiro!” He grips his shoulders tighter, squeezing his heart at the same time. Sounds of plates hitting the floor echoes in the back. “Listen, the doctor will come, Ryota is calling him now...and, and...” his words stuttered, as he's trying too hard to speak with his hunting breath.

_And..._

He loves it. The musky smelled cologne Toru has, a hint of minty smokes from the electric cigarette replacing the tobacco Toru loves, the smell of the soap Toru used, and his sweat that greetings him the moment he's able to breathe. The warm of Toru's body. The tightness of his embrace. The nails throbbing his skin from behind his loose hospital pajama. He, Moriuchi Takahiro, a man loves everything about the man. Everything about Yamashita Toru. Once again he feels it, the small thumps behind his ribs. Just like in every close moments they had back in _Ambitions_ arena tour in Japan last year, and going on in almost every performances, and even the dome. He was going wild whenever a woman was brought up.

It hurts. The small thumps.

Taka coughs more blood, vomiting another petals. Clutching at the guitarist's gray t-shirt, he looks up, murmuring, “Sorry...” For the blood on your tee.

“ _Hanahaki_ , huh...?” Toru says, his voice cracked, sounding so weird for a man like Toru to be emotional, but he did, in the closing of their dome tour's final, “...how come you end up with the disease?” Cute.

Taka stares at his now red colored, and rose petals patterned white bed sheet, fingers still clutching on Toru's t-shirt. “...Weird, huh?” he says, almost whispering.

“You said, you don't have anybody you love.” 

Last year, Hawaii's live?

“You watched?” Taka chuckles. “Or was it from the radio...with...Shohei...?”

“Do you find someone you love? Finally?”

He smiles.

“When was it?”

He chews his underlip.

“That was why last year you said...,” heavy chuckle escapes Toru's mouth, “singing ‘ _Wherever You Are_ ’ hurts you?”

He closes his eyes for second...

“...Who...?” 

 ...and opens it.

There's a silent for a moment. Then a cough, not his. A heavy cough. Once, thrice, and Toru exhaling a deep breathe. He then hears a nasal voice telling Toru to give him a space, but the baritone refuses the request. 

“Give me a moment,” Toru says.

 _He had deciding_.

“Toru-san...”

Toru coughs. Again.

Taka looks up, “...I love you...” he hears it, his own cracked voice, and feels it, his tremblings body and heart. Warm spreading on his cheeks as Toru cups his face. The midnight colored irises glints gently. 

“Taka...hi...” Cough cuts short Toru's calling for him. The guitarist closes his eyes, his shoulders and chest heaving heavily.

“...But...” Taka reaches the man's wrist, circling it with his fingers, “...You don't have to worry, Toru-san...”

Toru coughs heavier.

“I'll do the surgery.” Yes, it's his decision. That's why, Toru doesn't need to feel uncomfortable, they don't need to worry if anyone knows about his love towards Toru and trying to use it to drag One OK Rock down. Taka averts his gaze at his doctor. Nurses standing behind him, beside him are Ryota—and Tomoya, with his hands clutching on plastic bags. Their food. 

“...Hi...ro...”

Taka chews his underlip. “If I do the surgery, the rose will gone, right? The feeling...” he pauses, frowning, “the feeling will gone, ri—”

The embrace is too tight.

Toru's body is too heavy. They are too close, with him lying on the bed, legs hanging, and Toru being on top of him. Warm turns into a fire burning his body. His cheeks maybe has turning into the same color as the roses. He hears something rushing within his veins. His blood. And there are the small thumps behind his ribs, against hard and fast thumps behind Toru's. He can hear it, how Toru breathing so fast.

“If you do it, I'll die...,” Toru whispers, hot breaths tickling his ear. The bed creaking as Toru brings himself up, sturdy arms jails him in between and his eyes meeting a pair of midnight irises glinting soft yet full of seriousness. “So, please...don't do it,” his sentence firm.

Taka blinks once, twice, staring full of question and disbelief at the man who frowns at him. “Toru-san...”

“What?” he mouths.

“...you love me?”

Toru scratches his neck, glancing to his side and staring at him. “I hate it.” He once again glances to his side, “If all of you standing there and watching us. The last person, please close the door.”

Taka laughs, laughing until his chest hurt. A different pain hurts him and it's all right. It feels better. After all this thirteen years he bears the same pain, the same question. When he stops, Toru greets him with a frown and a touch on his cheeks—and his lips follows, claiming his lips. The iron smell of his blood stings his nose, but he smells Toru. The smell he loves.

Toru's thumbs pressing his cheeks, he opens his mouth, letting the man claiming him more. It tastes better and better. Better than any sticky and glossy females lips he had scooped. His heart beating fast yet soft. Taka reaches the man's neck, tilting his head and the fire in his chest lits bigger as Toru deepens their kiss. The pain he feels it, of a stolen breathe rather than from petals clogging his trachea and thorns piercing his lungs. His rose, stayed on his arm either adorning his skin or inside his embrace.

“I love you, Takahiro” Toru whispers in his lips, licking the strands of saliva connecting them.

Taka brings Toru closer, their forehead meets, focus gazing and locking at each other's. Taking a deep breathe, he smiles too wide that his cheeks hurt. He cups Toru's cheeks, brushing the withered rose petals away. And between their hunting breaths, he says: “I love you too, Toru-san.” 

 _His rose_.

This time, different with thirteen years ago, he knows he'll no longer feel the pain, even if the thorns pierces his heart and the rose petals fills his chest.

_‘It is alright to me, the pain well become_

_Luscious, agonizing, nectar to me’_

 

Toru smiles. “Yeah.”

 #


End file.
